By Melissa Werthmann, News Staff

With the Curry Student Center indoor quad as their arena, Terry MacCormack and Nick Naraghi verbally sparred Tuesday night during the Student Government Association’s (SGA) executive vice presidential debate in front of a crowd of more than 20 students, mostly SGA members.

MacCormack serves as SGA’s chief of staff and is running without a running mate, while Naraghi, a senator, is running with presidential candidate Peter Petrin.

“I believe I have the work ethic, experience and ideas that this position needs right now,” MacCormack said.

“I promise that I will communicate more regularly with students all the time,” Naraghi fired back.

Northeastern’s Student Alumni Association sponsored the debate. The two candidates for executive vice president (EVP) began with questions from the moderators and moved on to others submitted through Twitter and ended with those from audience members. This is the first debate of its kind, since students voted to make the EVP a directly elected position last year.

Naraghi, a sophomore computer science and finance major, said his biggest promise to the student body is an aggressive attempt at communication and stressed face-to-face interaction in dining halls, Snell Library, Curry Student Center and residence halls.

MacCormack, a sophomore political science major, disagreed.

“Talk is great, but talk is cheap,” he said, and instead highlighted his goal to work with students to implement their ideas.

But Naraghi didn’t back down.

“I’d be really careful about devaluing the talk of the student body,” he said. Naraghi said that talk is what has brought Northeastern the SGA it has today.

“I don’t think talk is cheap in terms of what the students say,” MacCormack countered. “SGA putting itself above other student groups, that is the cheap talk.”

Naraghi highlighted his experience on SGA’s Finance Board and how it has prepared him to be an effective EVP. Naraghi was removed from that board on Feb. 15 for violating confidentiality. Comptroller Anthony Golia sent a memo notifying Naraghi of his removal of the board which stated, “On Nov. 11, 2011 when debating the Alpha Phi Alpha event via email, you took it upon yourself, in violation of the confidentiality of an ongoing Finance Board debate, to discuss the specifics of deliberations with the organization’s president.”

On Dec. 7, Naraghi also discussed details of “Staff Appreciation Day” with a university staff member before the event was debated and voted upon. “After receiving his answers, in front of the entire board, you then proceeded to use this information to argue in favor of funding the event as you saw fit,” Golia wrote.

“The rules of the finance board are enforced selectively,” Naraghi said in an interview with The News Wednesday. He explained he was trying to help student groups through the event contract process.

“I was helping groups out and it’s not something that only I have done,” he said. “The comptroller chose to remove me from the board because he has that ability, but he has not done that to other people in the past.”

Naraghi said he was confused and upset when he received the memo, but aimed to turn it into a learning experience.

“It wasn’t just a bad thing,” he said. “I stand behind my decisions because it was for the good of the students and the good of the board.”

During the debate when MacCormack spoke about tuition and a lack of campus space, Naraghi accused him of stepping outside of the job description of EVP.

“From what I’m hearing it sounds a lot like my opponent is talking about a presidential role,” he said. Naraghi said as EVP he would focus on making SGA meetings more efficient and having more full body senates.

“My opponent is talking a lot about meeting structure,” MacCormack said, and underlined the importance of focusing on other projects.

Naraghi said he disagreed with how SGA dealt with deciding not to bring Chick-fil-A to campus, one of the most public issues SGA faced this semester.

“I love Chick-fil-A,” he said. “I love eating their food,” but that what the company stands for is not right for Northeastern. “The way it was handled in senate might not have been the best way.”

MacCormack agreed and said SGA should have started working on the issue earlier.

Regarding problems within the association, MacCormack said the members need to be more receptive to criticism.

“I think that SGA this year does receive criticism relatively well,” he said. “I think we’ve gotten better. Any organization that doesn’t defend itself once in a while isn’t worth being a part of.”

Later in the debate, Naraghi said SGA members need to have more fun.

“There aren’t as many interactions outside of senate as there used to be,” he said.

Moderators from the Student Alumni Association asked the candidates how they would make Northeastern better.

“One thing I would change to make the university better as a whole would be the contracting process,” Naraghi said, referencing the procedure student groups must follow to host an event, vendor or performer. He said he thinks the process is too complicated and time consuming.

MacCormack focused on the difficulty of finding a place to study or meet with a student group. “Campus space is a huge problem on this campus,” he said. “We need to fix the way that space is allocated here.”

SGA’s Executive Director of Communications Kelly Dwyer, sitting in the audience, asked Naraghi why he has not worked on any communications projects this year. Although he offered to help with revamping SGA’s website, Dwyer said Naraghi “dropped off the face of the earth” when it came time to actually work.

“If you can’t communicate effectively with the executive director of communications how do you plan on communicating with 16,000 students?” Dwyer asked.

Naraghi apologized for offending her and said the situation was a learning experience for him, through which he realized he should not take on too many projects if he can’t allocate sufficient time.

The free hair cut issue from last year’s election resurfaced. In order to entice students to vote in the 2011 race, SGA offered free haircuts for life to every 99th voter, courtesy of Floyd’s 99 Barber Shop. After multiple SGA members claimed the prize, critics said they carefully timed their votes according to a vote counter on their website.

MacCormack was 1881 to vote and Naraghi was 1386, both multiples of 99, meaning the two EVP candidates receive free hair cuts for life.

MacCormack said they were just senators “going through the process” and had “no malicious intentions.” He said because of logistical concerns and the “perception that SGA was padding its pockets with free haircuts, I wouldn’t go forward with prizes at all.”

Naraghi said, “The things that happened in that situation might not have been the best decisions on my part,” but that the voter count was available to all students. He said if that information was not communicated to students it was SGA’s fault, “not my fault for participating.”

“I do tip my barber every time I go there,” he said.

The EVP debate was the second debate this semester. Last Thursday, the presidential candidates faced off in a debate sponsored by the Resident Student Association (RSA).

Petrin supported the raise in the Student Activity Fee (SAF), while opponent Chris LaColla disagreed with the increase.

LaColla said former SGA Presidential candidates have set “unrealistic expectations,” and he would make sure to communicate exactly what the association can do for students.

“We need to be honest what this organization can actually do,” LaColla said.

Petrin faulted the way information about the Chick-fil-A controversy spread and called it a “communication failure” by SGA. He said, if elected president, he would make sure any sort of opportunity for feedback would be made far in advance.

–Zac Estrada, news staff, contributed to this report.